The clean room industry was spawned in the early 1960's. The advent of high tech developments in electronics, optics, telecommunications, robotics, medicine, and genetic engineering, to name a few, gave rise to an ever growing need for "clean space" in manufacturing, research and development.
Typically, clean rooms are based on the concept of providing clean air, uncontaminated, to the clean room. The contamination level of clean air is generally proportional to the number of filtered air changes per hour caused to move through an enclosed space. The higher the filtered air exchange rate, the cleaner the room. Thus, the major effort relative to clean rooms has been typically related to the concept of supplying an optimum number of air changes per hour, wherein the air changes contain a minimum of particulate matter of a minimum size.
In addition, filtering mechanisms have been in the forefront of patent literature. For example, it has been found that turbulent distribution of air requires a greater number of air changes to achieve a given level of efficiency. Accordingly, a great deal of patent literature deals with the concept of reducing turbulent distribution to laminar distribution, such distribution being based on the filtration mechanisms desired.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,975,995 discloses a specially constructed ventilated ceiling construction to assertedly provide laminar air flow. U.S. Pat. No. 4,603,618 again deals with ceiling ventilation construction to maximize laminar air flow.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,608,066 discloses providing a wall panel clean room construction that allows for walls to be movably positioned so as to divide a clean room into separated work areas.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,594,278 discloses acoustical panels designed to reduce the noise level in clean rooms.
However, there has been very little, if any, patent literature dealing with the concept of ceiling and/or wall design of clean rooms, i.e., designs to minimize the loss of air through ceiling and wall panels.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to such a wall and ceiling design.